I was once a regular user (and abuser) of Diphenhydramine and for an eventful two years it was even my drug of choice. During this time I embarked upon a journey to hell and back on which I met my demons face to face in a very real sense as I wrestled with an addiction which would have taken my life if God himself had not intervened.
About Diphenhydramine
Diphenhydramine is a popular over the counter sleep aid and allergy medicine first synthesized in 1943. It's organic counterparts include Atropine and Scopolamine which can be found in several members of the deadly nightshade family of plants.
In recreational doses this first generation antihistamine is also a potent deliriant class hallucinogen capable of producing completely realistic hallucinations indistinguishable from reality. These hallucinations are more commonly dark in their overall theme and composition in comparison to hallucinations induced by typical psychedelic class hallucinogens such as Psilocybin Mushrooms and LSD.
Because of this it is frequently only used by the young and naive who don't have access to popular recreational substances. Most who try it once won't use it again due to it's high potential for overwhelming user with feelings of fear, confusion and dread. Also because of it's anticholinergic activity it also produces a wide spectrum of unpleasant and sometimes potentially dangerous (and even life threatening) side effects in high recreational doses making it unpopular and relatively unheard of among the general drug taking populace.
Yet in spite of it's downsides Diphenhydramine enjoys a notable degree of infamy in some online circles of psychonauts (many of whom even enjoy the Diphenhydramine experience and actively seek it out for it's unique hallucinogenic effects.) Those who use deliriants recreationally are often referred to on the internet as 'delvers' (a term taken coined from the deliriant imageboard on 420chan.)
My First Trip
My descent into madness began innocently enough on one unusually mild December evening in the December of 2013. Having experimented with a handful of substances at uni these being Cannabis, Ketamine (in small doses) and a couple of research chemicals including Methiopropamine and MDAi I returned home in the August of that year with an open mind and a strong desire to acquire a powerful hallucinogen having only previously only mildly hallucinated on MDAi.
When asking around for typical hallucinogens such as LSD yielded no results I turned to the internet in search of an alternative hallucinogen which I might be able to obtain from a local pharmacy. The search proved fruitful providing me with two promising chemicals to investigate.
I read first about Dextromethorphan (another notable over the counter hallucinogen which I will be revisiting later in these memoirs due to the interesting synergy between these two drugs) before returning to the search results to read about Diphenhydramine.
You might call it morbid fascination but I was instantly captivated by the endless accounts of nightmareish trip reports I read on Erowid all of which seemed to follower a predictable trend with users typically becoming delirious and incoherent at high doses with a high tendency to hallucinate insects, tentacles, demons/ghosts (which I will later argue are one and the same) and all manner of other unspeakable horrors. Most trip reports I read frequently ended in a visit to the emergency room and strong vows to never use drugs again.
This didn't put me off in the least however and all common sense brushed aside I set out to my local Tesco's pharmacy to make some inquiries. I returned an hour later with a box of 16 Nytol 'One A Night' sleep aid tablets containing 50mg DPH per pill giving me a grand total of 800mg to experiment with that evening. Most online guides suggested I begin with a starting dose of 300mg to get a feel for the substance and familiarize with it's side effects. At 7:30PM I did precisely this and ingested six tablets while listening to music. Half an hour later I was feeling composed but anxious for the trip to begin and as I had a few grams of Cannabis in my room I decided to roll a generously sized joint and go out for a smoke.
Outside I began to inhale smoke while admiring the clear December sky and anticipating the first alerts. In hindsight I realize that this is when I first began to trip out (albeit lightly) but being relatively naive to drugs at the time I was not yet particularly adept at discerning subtle changes in my physical and mental being and as such I returned to my bedroom pleasantly stoned but still under the illusion that the drug had not yet began to take hold of me (a reoccurring theme in this trip and following trips.)
Back inside my bedroom I calculated that approximately 45 minutes had passed since I took my initial dose and so I decided to hell with it and ingested another 200mg. Whilst rolling up another joint I began to experience some preliminary waves of delirium induced euphoria which broke over me like a wave (I later learned that DPH is a weak SERT inhibitor.) On the way out of my bedroom I observed my wall and my gaze fell upon a little spider which excited me greatly as I had read earlier that day that spiders were a common hallucination to experience on DPH. After inspecting the spider for a minute I put my finger out to touch it and it fell onto the floor. To this day I still do not know whether that spider was my first true hallucination or not.
By the time I got back outside I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was now starting to feel a little drunk and also beginning to stagger about a bit. I looked around at my garden and fell into state of awe as no sooner had I closed my black door than everything in my field of vision deterioated into a matrix of ominous washed out shades. I found this both as striking as I did slightly harrowing but even so I was encouraged as this was confirmation that my trip was kicking into gear and so I began to dance around my garden a little.
Puffing enthusiastically on my joint I began to take a casual stroll around my garden (which was more of a drunken stupor) and was immediately taken back when I perceived the shadow of a bush appear to jump out from under the bush and move quickly across the lawn in a animal like motion which also felt distinctly alien to me at the same time. After pausing for a couple of seconds to recalibrate myself I continued around my garden but didn't get very far before I was taken back again this time by a shadow at the bottom of my garden steps which morphed into a tall dark figure who began to transcend the steps in an eerily smooth and authentically human fashion.
I jumped back in fright at once as a rush of adrenaline briefly sharpened my senses just long enough for me to process what had just happened. The eerie figure was now standing still at my garden gate and I decided to walk back inside my house slowly (although I wanted to run) in attempt to convince myself that I had no reason to be scared as I was simply hallucinating (and this was this not to be expected?) After all I had taken a powerful hallucinogen and yet I was certain that for a couple of fleeting seconds I had forgotten this. As I turned back to go into my house I spared my shed a quick glance and was shocked to observe that the door had disappeared apparently replaced by a black void vaguely resembling the door's physical proportions.
Back in my bedroom I sat on my bed feeling very peculiar; a strange mixture tiredness reminiscent of insomnia and drunkenness coupled with the kind of dirty euphoria you might expect from taking a heavily cut ecstasy pill. There was also another distinctly foreign feeling growing in my midst which at the time I could not quite put my finger on (I later discovered that this was fusion of amnesia and delirium.) The cannabis I smoked had also lent a bizarre fairground 'fun house' flavor to the experience which I now believe (having taken DPH both by itself and in combination with Cannabis again since) dissociated me somewhat from the darker elements of the trip which ensued (which I am grateful for.)
Remembering my ordeal outside I snatched a brief glance out of my bedroom window. My gaze was met by a scene of evolving chaos as an array of translucent arachnids, venomous snakes and ghoulish shadowy figures went about their business outside. Some noticed me and began to scale the wall coming towards my window which caused me to jump back again in horror but I was relieved to discover that upon reaching me these ominous forms seemed to disappear upon entering my bedroom (I later discovered that Dipehnhydramine hallucinations can loose varying degrees of vividness in both dim and well lit environment depending on the person tripping and the dose taken.)
Hopping back onto my bed I looked at my laptop and noticed that the words on the screen were now somewhat difficult (and somewhat painful) to focus in. The time and date in the corner of my screen also appeared to be distorting and morphing in a hypnotizing fashion. For the life of me I could not tell the time was nor recall when I had taken my initial dose.
Apparently at some during the evening I also forgot that I had began to trip out altogether I would later discover that I had taken the rest of the tablets in the peak of my delirium (and this should highlight the very real dangers involved in using deliriant hallucinogens.)
My short term memory continued to deteriorate rapidly as as I entered into full blown delirium. A somewhat clinical ambiance settled over my bedroom and I began to relax and finally ease into my trip. This was helped along by growing waves of delirium which gradually began to overpower my ability to think rationally which had the additional benefit of negating any fear associated with such thinking .
e) My inner monologue at this point deteriorated into a steady babble of mostly nonsensical gibberish and after what felt like an age I became suddenly startled by the sound of my own voice which afforded me one fleeting moment of sobriety in which I was able to reflect that I had began to engage in a bizarre dialogue with my curtain. I seem to recall finding it amusing during that brief window of sanity that I had actually been provoked into responding out loud to some unfathomable inquiry my curtain had made of me.
On autopilot I got up to turn my bedroom light off and no sooner had I done this than I was immediately standing in an environment which was constantly evolving and transforming itself into a variety of predominantly dark and abstract themes. Spiders of all sizes and shapes appeared all over my room while strange vines and carnivorous looking plants appeared to sprout out of my floorboards. I thought that this was all very normal and got back into bed with the intention of going to sleep as in my delirium I had completely forgotten that I was tripping. I can even recall feeling quite disappointed throughout the majority of the trip as I believed the drug wasn't working except for the odd gap of a few seconds here and there were I would briefly surface for just long enough to think 'WHAT THE FUCK?' before being sucked back into my trip.
In my bed I continued to observe my room in a state of wide eyed delirious awe while the dim aura of light omitted by my laptop screen morphed into tendrils of smoke which rose up to my ceiling before dissipating into darkness. By now my vision had deteriorated greatly and had become choppy, blurry and distorted by steady waves of nystagmus. I appeared to be looking at the world through a static gradient which extended outwards to fill my entire field of view. This static seemed to provide the substance of my hallucinations: I can remember poking my finger through a translucent octopus tentacle which grew out from the book shelf above my bed and was astonished to observe when I pulled my finger back out that it was coated in a ghostly ectoplasm which felt warm (I was even able to flick pieces onto my wall.)
Objects appeared to teleport around my bedroom. A figure of Mario began to walk back and forth on my shelf in a fashion which was both creepy and menacing. The walls twisted and contorted in a fragmented and crude manner occasionally revealing peculiar voids through which all manner of horrors emerged. The dolphins on my curtain winked at me devilishly and then swam straight off my curtain before suddenly 'glitching' back into their original places on my curtain. At the same time I was engaged in a continuous stream of nonsensical dialogue with the objects of my hallucinations oftentimes telepathically.
A Note About Familiar Spirits:
I realize now that this was the first time I communicated with familiar spirits (demonic entities) on DPH, though as I was so incredibly Bible naive at the time of this trip I had not developed enough discernment to realize this (and I think now that I perhaps had developed little to no discernment at all at this infantile stage in my faith.) I will discuss familiar spirits in greater length in further memoirs.
Still persisting in the belief that I hadn't yet started to trip out I closed my eyes to try and get some sleep perhaps six or seven hours after taking my initial dose. I was nowhere near coming down from the drug as I began to drift off having strong audio hallucinations of my Mum calling my name and of my Sister talking to me (the source of these audio hallucinations was from familiar spirits (demons)) I startled myself back awake a couple of times by responding out loud to the object of my audio hallucinations. I was also able to see through my closed eye lids in such immersive detail that there were many times during my descent into sleep that I was unable to tell if my eyes were open or closed.
Shortly after I had fallen asleep (I will never know whether or not I was actually asleep or not) I 'woke up' to go and take a pee. It was then that I had my first out of body experience on DPH as I vaguely recall that having made it half way into the bathroom when all of a sudden I woke up in my bed again. This happened a couple more times and the last time it happened I was able to break out of the loop and take a pee. After this I drifted off into a strange state of consciousness which vaguely resembled sleep.
Throughout the night I experienced multiple occurrences of paranormal nocturnal phenomena including sleep paralysis (a dead giveaway of demonic activity) and I strongly suspect that I had further interactions with familiar spirits. For instance I recall my Mum (and by that I mean a familiar spirit mimicking her) waking me up to have a conversation yet the very next day I was shocked to discover from her that this mysterious exchange of words had never occurred.
When I woke up after a few hours of disturbed sleep I had not yet come down fully from the trip though I was now somewhat coherent and just about able to string a conversation together.
